


Waiting for Summer

by aestivus



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestivus/pseuds/aestivus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only a few weeks until school is finished, but until then there are (more often than not) hundreds of miles between Lizzie and Darcy. It's a good thing they have skype. </p>
<p>Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Summer

In a few more weeks, it will be graduation: Lizzie will be free. 'Free', that is, in as much as a person can be when faced with a crippling amount of student loans and no sure way of paying them. The weight of the future sits low and tight in her stomach, and looms overhead in her dreams, as if the debt is made up of coinage, and all of it is threatening to topple on to her at once. 

It kind of helps that school isn't quite finished, yet. There are papers to write, and finals to prepare for. There's the video blog. 

And there's Darcy. 

They're taking it slow. They have to, really, because he's in LA and she's at home, and they're both busy. He can't just drop everything to come and see her all the time (though he does it a lot anyway), and that's probably good, because she can't drop everything to spend time with him, either. 

They're cautious with each other. It's new, still: new and uncertain. She's afraid that darcybot will make a reappearance; that this new, improved side of him is an act, a game, a glitch. He's afraid that she's toying with him. That she doesn't really feel the way he does. 

(He, clearly, is not privy to her _other_ dreams.)

They skype. It's not a new experience for Darcy, who has often kept in touch with his sister this way, but Lizzie is more used to talking to her camera for video blogs than personal conversations. She finds it unnerving, sometimes, glancing up and seeing him watching her so intently, with that wistful look in his eyes, and that--

Lust. Sometimes, it's just plain lust. 

She plays it up: taunts him. She watches his discomfort, and the way he paws at his tie. Sometimes, he even undoes it, and lets it hang loose, and she imagines using it to propel his face towards hers and--

Sometimes the looks she gives him are worse than the ones he gives her. 

It's a hot, sultry April afternoon, a Sunday. He'd hoped to come up for the weekend, but something came up, and instead they've left their webcams running as they work in their separate rooms, in separate houses, in separate cities. 

Lizzie is curled up on the bed, her legs tucked beneath her, leafing through her notes. She's _trying_ to be diligent, and to be fair, so is he. 

He's just distracting, and it's been over a week since she saw him last, and-- 

"If you keep staring at me, I will never get anything done." 

His remark draws her out of her reverie. "I was not! You're the one staring. _I_ am trying to work." 

She glances up and sees that tiny, twitching smile, the one that always bedevils her. 

"You wrinkle your nose when you concentrate," he reports, unrepentant. "I find it terribly fetching."

"You, sir, are flirting with me," she teases in reply, lowering her gaze - though she'd really rather look at him. "It's all highly inappropriate, I'll have you know. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to influence my report on Pemberley."

"Is that what you are working on?" 

" _Trying_ to work on. I thought you had work to do, Darcy."

"I find myself unable to concentrate. You're very distracting." 

"And busy. Don't forget busy."

His dimples are showing. She can't help but stare, meeting his gaze via the webcams. She can feel her cheeks turn pink, and his smile only broadens. "Perhaps," he says, "it is time for a break. What do you think, Lizzie?" 

" _I_ think you're incorrigible." More reluctantly, a moment later, "I really do need to work."

"Oh," he says, all audible disappointment. 

A thought, half-formed, pops into her brain, and she mulls it over for a moment. 

Well, she thinks, and why not? She wants to see how he'll react. What he'll think.

Her fingers fly across the keyboard; a moment later, he's surprised to see a link flash up in his Skype window. 

"Lizzie?"

"I'm working, Darcy."

Though it was, admittedly, quite difficult to keep a straight face and a focused mind, especially as she hears the click of his mouse -- and that little, sharp, confused intake of breath. 

He's silent for so long that she's afraid she has offended him; she lifts her gaze just slightly, attempting to get a look at his expression, preferably without him realising she was looking. 

His cheeks are pink, and his mouth just slightly open: his jaw has dropped. 

Something about the image makes her laugh, and promptly jolts him out of his thoughts. 

"This-- they--"

"Yes, Darcy," she says, unable to keep the mirth out of her tone. "Sometimes, people internet people are very, very bored, they write stories about people they don't know."

"But they--"

"And sometimes," she continues, undaunted. "They write about us."

" _Pornography_." There's something strangled in his tone. 

"Oh yes. I quite liked that bit with the ribbon. What do you think? Interested?"

To her surprise, he doesn't splutter, though he also doesn't say anything. She finds herself glancing up again - and this time, it's _her_ turn to blush. He's staring at her with that look in his eyes again, one that tells her quite plainly what he'd be doing now… if only they were in the same room, and not hundreds of miles apart.

She feels a delicious frisson of excitement run through her. She always feels that way when he looks at her like that, but this time-- it feels like more. She wants that. She wants him. 

LA has never felt so far away. 

"Lizzie," he said, breaking the silence with a hesitating exhale. He's trying to sound conversational and unbothered, and it isn't working. "I could-- be there in a few hours." 

" _Darcy!_ " Never mind that it's not so far from her own thoughts, and that, if she's being honest, there's nothing she'd like more. "You can't just… do that."

"Visit my," there's a short pause. "Girlfriend?"

"For a _booty call_." 

His smile, this time, is a rather shy one. "According to this," he says, indicating the computer screen in front of him. "I am quite - impressive. In any number of ways." 

" _Darcy_." 

She's blushing. Clearly, sending that link was not a good idea. 

"Of course," he continues, undaunted by her embarrassment, "according to _this_ you were in my office at Christmas, and we were… christening my desk. It seems your fictional counterpart changed her opinion on me rather earlier than _you_ did." 

"The fans want what the fans what," she retorts, tartly. "People are romantics. Too many Hollywood movies. Life doesn't work like that." 

One of his eyebrows lifts, rakish and amused. "No? Woman spurns man's admittedly poorly advised advices, mocks him on video in front of thousands of viewers, who apparently write fanfiction… and then changes her mind." He skims over the details; she's relieved. "That doesn't sound Hollywood to you?" 

She'd like to argue the point, but… where to even begin? He knows, anyway. He's smiling. 

So's she. 

"If this were a movie, it would turn out you've been sitting in the next room to me all this time," she says. "And I'd wish you were here, and you'd hang up on me, and then you'd _be_ here, and--" She grins. "I'd turn off the camera."

He looks almost disappointed, though rather more at himself than at her. His, "If only," is fervent, and low-toned; she shivers. 

"Besides," he says, quite calmly, "It does rather seem I have some research to do. How many of these stories _are_ there?" 

This time, they both laugh. 

Neither one says it, but they're counting down the weeks. Once school is over… 

It's a heady kind of excitement. The whole world is waiting. 

Soon.


End file.
